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Roman Catholicism in Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: An Eaglais Chaitligeach), overseen by the Scottish Bishops' Conference, is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic church, the Christian church headed by the Pope. After being firmly established in Scotland for nearly a millennium, Roman Catholicism was outlawed following the Scottish Reformation in 1560. Catholic Emancipation in 1793 helped Roman Catholicism regain civil rights. In 1878, the Roman Catholic hierarchy was formally restored.[1] Throughout these changes, several pockets in Scotland retained a significant pre-Reformation Roman Catholic population, including parts of Banffshire, the Hebrides, and more northern parts of the Scottish Highlands.
In 1716, Scalan seminary was established in the Highlands and rebuilt in the 1760s by Bishop John Geddes, a well-known figure in the Edinburgh of the Enlightenment period. When Robert Burns wrote to a correspondent that "the first [that is, finest] cleric character I ever saw was a Roman Catholick," he was referring to Bishop Geddes.[2] Scottish Gaeldom has been both Roman Catholic and Protestant in modern times. A number of Scottish Gaelic areas now are mainly Roman Catholic, including Barra, South Uist, and Moidart. The poet and novelist Angus Peter Campbell writes frequently about Roman Catholicism in his work. (See also the "Religion of the Yellow Stick".)
In the 2001 census, about 16% of the population of Scotland described themselves as being Roman Catholic, compared with 42% affiliated with the Church of Scotland.[3] Many Roman Catholics in Scotland are the descendants of Irish immigrants and of Highland migrants who moved to Scotland's cities and towns during the 19th century, when there was a potato famine in Ireland, and older Scottish Highland minorities. However, there are significant numbers of Italian, Lithuanian[4] and Polish descent, with more recent Polish immigrants again boosting the numbers of continental Roman Catholic Europeans in Scotland. Owing to immigration (overwhelmingly white European), it is estimated that, in 2009, there were about 850,000 Catholics in a country of 5.1 million.[5] Between 1994 and 2002, Roman Catholic attendance in Scotland declined 19% to just over 200,000.[6] By 2008, the Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference of Scotland estimated that 184,283 attended Mass regularly.[7]
Christianity probably came to parts of southern Scotland around the 2nd century, when the religion was established in Roman Britain generally. According to tradition, however, Scottish Christianity got its start with the mission of the Cumbrian Saint Ninian in the 4th century. His Life describes Ninian as a Briton who studied in Rome and became the first Roman Catholic bishop to visit Scotland when he was sent to the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic area of northern England and southern Scotland. Around 397, he established Scotland's first church, the Candida Casa in Whithorn, which became his centre of operations. Later, he went north to begin evangelising the Picts.
According to the Vitae Niniani, Ninian saw his journey to Rome as a calling:
Some Picts abandoned Christianity at some point; Saint Patrick speaks of "Apostate Picts" in his mid-5th-century Letter to Coroticus.[8] Then, in 563, the expatriate Irish monk Columba settled on the island of Iona with twelve companions, and started a monastery there. Columba's monastery became one of Britain's most important religious sites and was instrumental in converting the Picts and in providing the church with an institutional structure after the end of Roman rule in Britain and the Anglo-Saxon invasion had reduced contact between Britain and the continent. In the following years, monks from Iona established monasteries throughout Scotland, Britain, and continental Europe, including the important priory of Lindisfarne in Northumberland. Ionan monks also converted the Orkney and Shetland islands in the pre-Norse period, as reflected in the papar names and in commemorations such as North Ronaldsay (actually a corruption of "Rinansey" – St Ninian's Island). Early Christian settlements in Scotland are commemorated by "Kil-" names (e.g., Kilmarnock).
The Roman Catholic faith was firmly established in the 6th or 7th century. The Scottish Celtic Church originally had marked liturgical and ecclesiological differences from the rest of Western Christendom, being monastically led. Some of these were resolved at the end of the 7th century following the Synod of Whitby and St Columba's withdrawal to Iona, and others in the ecclesiastical reforms of the 11th century, so that the Scottish Church became an integral part of the Roman Catholic communion.
That remained the case until the Scottish Reformation in the early 16th century, when the Church in Scotland broke with the papacy and adopted a Calvinist confession. At that point, the celebration of the Roman Catholic mass was outlawed. Some Scottish Roman Catholics remained, mainly in a small strip from the northeastern coast to the Western Isles, and notably in Moidart, Morar, South Uist, and Barra. Moreover, some Scottish lairds and land owners remained Roman Catholic (and some were to convert to Roman Catholicism, as did Saint John Ogilvie [1569–1615], who went on to be ordained a priest in 1610, later being hanged for proselytism in Glasgow). Nevertheless, when Mary, Queen of Scots, returned from France to rule, she found herself a Catholic in a largely Protestant state and Protestant court. Roman Catholicism's illegal status had a devastating impact on The Church's fortunes, although a significant congregation did continue to adhere, especially in the more remote Gaelic-speaking areas of the Highlands and Islands.[9]
Numbers probably reduced in the seventeenth century and organisation deteriorated.[10] The aftermath of the failed Jacobite risings in 1715 and 1745 further damaged the Roman Catholic cause in Scotland.[10]
The Pope appointed Scalan in Glenlivet was the preliminary centre of education for Catholic priests in the area. It was illegal, and it was burned to the ground on several occasions by soldiers sent from beyond The Highlands.[12] Beyond Scalan there were six attempts to found a seminary in the Highlands between 1732 and 1838, all suffering financially under Catholicism's illegal status.[11] Clergy entered the country secretly and although services were illegal they were maintained.[13]
Exact numbers of communicants are uncertain, given the illegal status of Catholicism. In 1755 it was estimated that there were some 16,500 communicants, mainly in the north and west.[13] In 1764, "the total Catholic population in Scotland would have been about 33,000 or 2.6% of the total population. Of these 23,000 were in the Highlands".[14] Another estimate for 1764 is of 13,166 Catholics in the Highlands, perhaps a quarter of whom had emigrated by 1790,[15] and another source estimates Roman Catholics as perhaps 10% of the population.[15]
While the landlords responsible for the Highland Clearances did not target people for ethnic or religious reasons,[16] there is evidence of anti-Catholicism in the thoughts of some who were responsible for the clearances.[17][18][19][20][21][22][23] In particular, large numbers of Catholics emigrated from the Western Highlands in the period 1770 to 1810 and there is evidence that anti Catholic sentiment (along with famine, poverty and rising rents) was a contributory factor in that period.[24][25] Noteworthy figures in the late stages of the specifically Catholic clearances and emigration from Scotland include Bishop Alexander Macdonnell, who, against the odds, made possible a settlement in Ontario, Canada, of an army regiment, and their families, after its disbandment.[26][27]
During the 19th century, Irish immigration substantially increased the number of Roman Catholics in the country, especially in the West of Scotland. Later Italian, Polish, and Lithuanian immigrants reinforced those numbers.
The Roman Catholic hierarchy was re-established in 1878, at the beginning of his pontificate, by Pope Leo XIII. As of late 2013, Archbishop Leo Cushley holds senior Roman Catholic bishopric in Scotland - that of Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh - following the resignation of Cardinal Keith O'Brien.
Mass immigration saw the emergence of sectarian tensions. In 1923, the Church of Scotland produced a highly controversial (and since repudiated) report entitled The Menace of the Irish Race to our Scottish Nationality. It accused the largely immigrant Roman Catholic population of subverting Presbyterian values and of causing drunkenness, crime, and financial imprudence. John White, one of the leading figures in the Church of Scotland at the time, called for a "racially pure" Scotland, declaring, "Today there is a movement throughout the world towards the rejection of non-native constituents and the crystallization of national life from native elements."[28] Such official attitudes started to wane considerably from the 1930s and '40s onward, especially when the established church leaders learned of what was happening in eugenics-conscious Nazi Germany and of the dangers of a national or folk-church. Germans who were ethnically Slavic or Jewish were not considered "true" Germans or members of the German Volk.[29][30]
In 1986, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland expressly repudiated the sections of the Westminster Confession directly attacking Roman Catholicism. In 1990, both the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church were founder members of the ecumenical bodies Churches Together in Britain and Ireland and Action of Churches Together in Scotland; relations between denominational leaders are now very cordial. Unlike the relationship between the hierarchies of the different churches, however, some communal tensions remain.
The association between football and displays of sectarian behaviour by some fans has been a source of embarrassment and concern to the management of certain clubs. The bitter rivalry between Celtic and Rangers in Glasgow, known as the Old Firm, is known worldwide for its sectarian divide. Celtic was founded by Irish Catholic immigrants and Rangers is traditionally supported by Unionists and Protestants. Sectarian tensions can still be very real, though perhaps diminished compared with past decades. Perhaps the greatest psychological breakthrough was when Rangers signed Mo Johnston (a Roman Catholic) in 1989. Celtic, on the other hand have never had a policy of not signing players due to their religion, and some of the club's greatest figures have been Protestants.[31][32]
The Scottish Parliament has recently legislated against sectarianism, making sectarian-related offences a form of aggravated offence.
The Roman Catholic community in Scotland was once largely working-class. In recent years, the situation has changed markedly: many Roman Catholics can be found in the what used to be called the professions, and it is now unremarkable for Roman Catholics to be occupying posts in the judiciary or in national politics. In 1999. the Rt Hon Dr John Reid MP became the first Roman Catholic to hold the office of Secretary of State for Scotland. His succession by the Rt Hon Helen Liddell MP in 2001 attracted considerably more media comment that she was the first woman to hold the post than that she was the second Roman Catholic. Also notable was the recent appointment of Louise Richardson to the University of St. Andrews as its Principal and Vice-Chancellor. St. Andrews is the third oldest university of the English-speaking world. Richardson, a Roman Catholic, was born in Ireland and is a naturalised United States citizen. She is the first woman to hold that office and first Roman Catholic to hold it since the Reformation.[33]
It is notable that the Roman Catholic church recognises the separate identities of Scotland and of England and Wales. The denomination in Scotland is thus governed by its own hierarchy and Bishops' Conference, not under the control of English bishops. In recent years, for example, there have been times when it was especially the Scottish Roman Catholic bishops who took the floor in the United Kingdom to argue for Roman Catholic social and moral teaching. Interestingly, the presidents of the Bishops' Conferences of England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland do meet formally to discuss "mutual concerns," though they are separate national entities. "Closer cooperation between the presidents can only help the Church's work," a spokesman noted recently.[34]
There are two Roman Catholic archbishops and six bishops in Scotland:
In 2001, Catholics were a minority in each of Scotland's 32 council areas but in a few parts of the country their numbers rivaled those of the official Church of Scotland. The most Catholic part of the country is composed of the western Central Belt council areas near Glasgow. In Inverclyde, 38.3% of persons responding to the 2001 Scottish Census reported themselves to be Catholic compared to 40.9% as adherents of the Church of Scotland. North Lanarkshire also already had a large Catholic minority at 36.8% compared to 40.0% in the Church of Scotland. Following in order were West Dunbartonshire (35.8%), Glasgow City (31.7%), Renfrewshire (24.6%), East Dunbartonshire (23.6%), South Lanarkshire (23.6%) and East Renfrewshire (21.7%).
Since 2001 the percentage denoting their religion as Church of Scotland decreased, with those identifying as Roman Catholic unchanged (though up in absolute terms due to population increase).[35][36] In 2011, Catholics outnumbered adherents of the Church of Scotland in several council areas, including North Lanarkshire, Inverclyde, West Dunbartonshire and the most populous one: Glasgow City.[37] Between the two censuses, numbers in Glasgow with no religion rose significantly while those noting their affiliation to the Church of Scotland dropped significantly so that the latter fell below that with an affiliation to Roman Catholicism.[38]
At a smaller geographic scale, one finds that the two most Catholic parts of Scotland are: (1) the southern-most islands of the Western Isles, especially Barra and South Uist, populated by Gaelic-speaking Scots of long-standing; and (2) the eastern suburbs of Glasgow, especially around Coatbridge, populated mostly by the descendants of Irish immigrants.[39]
According to the 2011 census, Catholics comprise 16% of the overall population, making it the second largest church after the Church of Scotland (32%).[40]
In recent years the Catholic Church in Scotland has suffered from poor publicity connected to attacks made against secular and liberal values by senior clergy. Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell, came under fire after describing the "gay lobby" as "the opposition" who were responsible for mounting a "a giant conspiracy" to shape public policy.[41] Criticism has also been levelled at perceived intransigence on joint faith schools over threats to withdraw acqueisence if guarantees of separate staff rooms, toilets, gyms, visitor and pupil entrances were not met.[42] In 2003 a Catholic church spokesman branded sex education as "pornography" and Cardinal O'Brien claimed plans to give sex education to pre-school children amounted to "state-sponsored sexual abuse of minors."[43]
In early 2013, Scotland's most senior cleric, Cardinal Keith O'Brien resigned after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him.[44] Subsequently, allegations were made that several other cases of alleged sexual misconduct took place involving other priests.[45]
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